JUST A FEW MINUTES TO DOOMSDAY MIDNIGHT

25012016

At the dawn of the nuclear age and the cold war, leading scientists who had created the new super weapons of mass destruction were already feeling remorse and guilt. In 1947 they began putting the DOOMSDAY CLOCK on the cover of THE BULLETIN OF ATOMIC SCIENTISTS. Last year as they moved the hands on the Doomsday clock from 5 to 3 minutes to midnight they wrote in an open letter to world leaders:

“In 2015, unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernisations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity, and world leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe.”

Today the scientists are meeting here in Washington DC. My guess is they will keep the hands at 3 minutes to midnight though some will argue, understandably, that it’s time to go to 2. It’s only been there once before, back in 1954. Had they had time they might have moved it to 1 during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Whatever they decide….we should all realize we are close to doomsday and the world situation today is so chaotic and confused that things could easily and quickly spiral out of control with little more advance warning.